


Hunt You Down

by Reis_Asher



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Failed Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Injured Hank Anderson, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, No Sex, On the Run, Plot, Post-Canon, Protective Hank Anderson, Revenge, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, just trust me ok?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 07:41:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17576705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: After the failure of Markus' android revolution, Connor finds himself hunted by CyberLife's newest model, RK900, and goes on the run. Hank tracks them down to the abandoned church where Markus planned his last stand, desperate to protect Connor so he can confess the feelings he's kept inside for so long.





	Hunt You Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings because I don't want to spoil it. It does get dark. You may think too dark. But I'm asking you to trust me that everything's going to be OK.

Hank gripped his gun, finger over the trigger as he stood outside the church's entrance, peering around the corner into the impenetrable gloom. He kept his back pressed up against the wall, hardly daring to breathe in case the two androids inside heard him or saw his breath turn to vapor in the cold night air. He tried to still his pounding heart, which knew Connor was holed up inside, trying to evade the newest deviant hunter CyberLife had sent to pursue him after the android revolution had failed. Snow settled all around him like dust, this cold December night trying to pretend at the Christmas spirit even though Hank had never felt further from it in his life. He'd never liked humans much, but they'd really proven the depths of their depravity in the past month.

Markus was dead and the future was looking grim for deviants, who had been hunted down to single digits. Hank had tried to protect Connor, but the android had gone on the run alone. Hank had reluctantly accepted he was safer by himself, knowing his own humanity was nothing but a weakness in the face of this new prototype android. It wouldn't hesitate to kill him in order to tie up CyberLife's last loose end. One human death could be explained away as an accident, a bit of collateral damage in destroying one of the last remaining deviants. They could even say Connor killed him, blemishing the boy's honor with something so far from the truth it would destroy his will to continue.

He'd made Hank promise not to follow, but Hank had received a radio call about a disturbance in an abandoned church and he knew in his heart that Connor and the RK900 hunter were here, locked in one last desperate struggle, and Hank couldn't turn away from the prospect of helping Connor any way he could. Just one second's distraction could give Connor the edge he needed to kill the android and win a moment's peace, and then maybe Hank would have the chance to say the words he'd chickened out on when Connor had left his home for the final time. The words that had kept him up at night, tossing and turning in his bed, wondering if he'd ever get to tell Connor that his love for him went beyond mere friendship.

Hank heard a firearm discharge with a loud pop and glimpsed a flash of blue light from up above. He turned the corner into the church and kept his eye on the rafters. One of the androids had shot the other, revealing blue glowing biocomponents. Marking them in the dark. This was the church where Markus had held his final sermon before the end of the android revolution, and the damaged android cast a blue hue over abandoned, dusty pews, android parts, and thirium packs from the final, desperate moments of a people's dying hope.

The moon emerged from behind a cloud, casting a low light through the stained-glass windows and broken panes and further illuminating the condemned building. Hank got a good view of the two figures above him, Connor and the white-jacketed RK900, trapped in a stalemate as each one preconstructed what the other might do. It was his Connor who had taken damage, and Hank wondered if he'd be able to generate some sort of distraction to knock the prototype off-guard and put Connor back on equal footing.

Instead, Connor looked down and caught his eye, and Hank realized with a sinking heart that he was a distraction, but not in the way he'd hoped. RK900 noticed Connor's attention fall elsewhere and raised his gun. Hank opened his mouth, but before he could yell to Connor, the deafening sound of gunfire popped through the building once more, reverberating off empty bricks and echoing over and over through Hank's head. 900 followed up by pushing Connor ruthlessly off the rafters and he fell, crashing to the earth like a falling star.

"CONNOR!" Hank bellowed. Connor obliterated the pews he crashed into, the rotting wood splintering, sending a dust cloud up into the air. Hank ran over to where Connor lay and pulled broken boards off him with desperate strength. Connor's neck was snapped, twisted at an unnatural angle, his brown eyes open and staring into space. Hank pulled his body into his arms, cradling him as if he could still protect him now. Even though it was already too late.

RK900 jumped from the rafters, pulling off a perfect superhero landing that would have impressed Hank if he wasn't enraged. He knew it was suicide to go up against this unfeeling killing machine that wore Connor's face, but he no longer cared. Everything he cared about in this world died on him, and he was done giving a damn if he lived or died now that there was more waiting for him on the other side than here on Earth.

He stood up and pointed his gun at 900, emptying the clip into the killing machine, but the bullets bounced off thick plating, barely making the skin retract to show its white undercarriage before it regenerated. He tossed the empty gun aside like a broken toy and charged 900. The android was ready for him and thrust an arm out. Hank went flying backwards into a pew and hit it hard, knocking the wind out of his sails and opening a gash on his forehead. His vision blurred, forcing him to stay down.

He heard a sound like a twig snapping, and his vision cleared just in time to see 900 holding Connor's detached head in its hands, its fingers stained with blue blood. Wires protruded from Connor's neck, severed by force, and Hank realized there was no reattaching it.

Connor was dead, and this soulless android had taken a trophy.

Hank pulled himself to his feet, grief and fury overpowering the physical pain in his body, the white-hot molten lava of his rage purifying his soul and directing all of his remaining strength to one purpose: destroying the android that killed Connor. He wouldn't rest until it was gone from this world, wouldn't sleep or eat until it was a pile of broken parts in a puddle of thirium.

RK900 walked right past Hank, not even sparing him a passing glance as he strolled down the aisle to the broken doors that led out onto the street, swinging Connor's head by the little tuft of hair that always hung over his forehead.

"We're not done, you piece of shit. Get back here!" Hank bellowed. He grabbed an iron pipe that might have once belonged to the church's plumbing system, determined to smash the android into its component pieces before it ever took Connor's head back to its master and declared its mission complete.

"Killing you is not part of my mission," 900 said in a perfect emulation of Connor's sweet voice. Hank wanted to rip that voice box out of its throat, destroy every part of this amoral object that looked and sounded a lot like the beautiful deviant he'd fallen in love with.

"I said we're not done!" Hank charged the android again. 900 swiftly dodged. Hank tripped on a piece of wood and ate dirt, a million scrapes on his face singing out their pain. He rolled onto his back as 900 tried to step over him and he grabbed its ankle, yanking as hard as he could. All he got for his effort was a sore wrist as 900 tore itself free with superhuman strength. It leaned down and picked Hank up by the front of his shirt, tossing him aside like he was a sack of potatoes. Hank's ribs were bruised by the force of the impact, but the sight of Connor's head made him overcome the agony flooding his body. Physical pain was insignificant and incomparable to the spiritual agony of watching Connor die before his eyes. All that remained was the white-hot vengeance that had awakened inside him and he wouldn't stop hunting 900 until one of them was dead.

Hank stood up one last time. 900 regarded him as a human might a bothersome ant, before raising his gun and pulling the trigger.

***

Hank woke in the dark. The first thing he noticed was the blood soaked through his woolen coat. He pressed his hand to it and it came away drenched in red. The bullet had gone right through his shoulder, but he needed medical attention. He might have died if the urgent agony hadn't brought him back from being knocked out.

There would be no going to the hospital. He'd been shot before, years ago, while taking down some red ice dealers working on a boat. He'd borne the pain then and he could do it again, so long as he could stop the bleeding. He forced himself to get to his feet, applying as much pressure to the wound as he could without passing out from the pain. His car was parked outside and he limped to it, frustrated that his body begged him to stop and rest while 900 was out there, stalking the city for the last deviants. Once its mission was over it would likely be deactivated, and Hank wasn't going to let CyberLife have the pleasure. It had forfeited any chance at life when it had taken Connor's, and Hank was going to protect the few deviants that remained from this white-clad hunter.

He'd thought about returning to Connor's body, but he didn't want to see his boy headless and destroyed. He wanted to remember the sweet android who had winked at him, who had smiled in his direction like he was the sun lighting up the world.

He drove home with one arm, fighting the blood loss that threatened to make him pass out again. Sumo whined as he opened the front door, smelling his master's blood in the air. Hank shut the door and headed into the bathroom, pulling off the woolen coat and clumsily unbuttoning his striped shirt. The t-shirt underneath was harder to remove, and he eventually used a pair of scissors to cut it away from his body rather than risk trying to lift it over his head.

He found bandages, gauze, alcohol and a spool of thread along with a needle in his medicine cabinet. He cleaned up the wound and stitched it together, sipping at a bottle of whiskey he found on the shelf next to the mirror to numb the pain as he forced the needle through his own flesh. The stitches were crude, but they served to hold the hole in his shoulder together. The exit wound was another matter. He couldn't reach it, and had to settle on bandaging it up. He only needed to be strong enough to hunt down and destroy 900, anyway. If an infection got to him after that, it wouldn't be the end of the world. He'd get to see Cole and Connor again.

He looked over his other injuries. The gash on his forehead was small and had stopped bleeding, and he was able to clean it up nicely without adding to his array of stitches. His ribs were bruised but not broken, and despite being sore, the alcohol was taking the edge off his pain enough that he was ready to get back out on the road. He grabbed a spare pistol and his trusty revolver along with some ammunition, hoping he'd have better luck penetrating 900's thick plating with a higher caliber round.

He drove back to the scene, trying to think about where a hunter like 900 might hole up. It was too obvious for it to return to CyberLife, especially with grisly trophies like the one he'd taken from Connor. He doubted CyberLife wanted proof he'd completed his mission. It almost seemed like a deviant act, in a way, a trait that was almost human—in a serial killer psychopath sort of way, that was.

He spied the thirium blood trail in the snow and realized he was overthinking things. 900 hadn't bothered to cover up the dripping trophy in his hand because there was no need. He hadn't killed a person, but destroyed a piece of property in the eyes of the law. The blue blood wouldn't alarm anyone, and so 900 hadn't even attempted to conceal it. Hank knew he had to work fast, though—he didn't have long before the thirium became invisible, and he no longer had Connor to detect it for him should he lose his ability to see the android blood.

The snow made it easier to follow the trail, which took him across the Ferndale district to the docks. The Jericho freighter was gone, sunk to the bottom by a ton of explosives. Connor had told him how they'd scuttled the ship and barely escaped with their lives when the FBI had attacked. Thinking about Connor restored his resolve as tiredness crept up on him with the dawn. The sunrise was beautiful, but Hank doubted he would live to see another. Even if he took 900 down, it would probably cost him his life to avenge Connor. CyberLife's attack dog wasn't going to go down without one hell of a fight.

Hank kept following the blood, even as the droplets became smaller and smaller. They led him to an abandoned warehouse right before the docks. He pushed a pallet aside, his instincts telling him this was the place 900 had chosen to hole up in even before he saw the small bookshelf full of trophies. He drew his revolver from his jacket, hoping his shoulder wouldn't let him down when he needed to steady his aim. Connor's head sat on top of the shelf, surrounded by torn off armbands, LEDs, locks of android hair, and other personal effects deviants had come to possess—articles of jewelry, books, and even a packet of seeds. Sunlight streamed in through the broken windows, illuminating the crumbling room like it was some kind of shrine.

Hank reached his hand out and closed Connor's eyes, brushing his hand through the android's soft hair like he'd wanted to so many times. "I'm sorry," he whispered, tightening his grip on the revolver. "I should have done better by you, Connor. I should have protected you."

"It wasn't alive." Hank spun around at the sight of that all-too familiar voice. 900 stared him down with cold grey eyes. "It was just a machine."

"Connor was so much more than a machine," Hank said. "I loved him. Now I'll never get to tell him because of you."

"What is this, Lieutenant Anderson? Petty revenge? You are in no fit condition to fight."

"I don't care. You took Connor from me. You're not leaving this place to hunt down more deviants." He pointed the revolver at 900 and fired. The android's eyes widened in shock as the round punctured his outer casing and shattered inside him, shredding his internal biocomponents. He fired three more rounds, sending blue blood flooding out of 900 in ribbons that painted the floor and walls like an art project.

"Hollow point bullets," 900 realized as he sagged against the wall, crumpling to the floor.

"Yeah. Cops have access to a few things that aren't exactly legal. How does it feel now? Does it hurt like you hurt my Connor?" Hank trembled from pain and adrenaline as he kept the revolver pointed at the android.

"Androids do not feel pain," 900 said. "Connor felt nothing when I deactivated it. I simply destroyed a machine."

"If you feel nothing, then why do you keep trophies? If you truly believe deviants aren't alive, why go to all these lengths? Collecting these grim reminders of your deeds isn't part of your mission, RK900. It serves no purpose."

"…I don't know why I do it." 900 stared blankly at Hank, and he could see the blue blood flooding his eyeballs, rendering him blind.

"Maybe you're a deviant too." Hank's voice was hoarse and cracked, worn from exhaustion and emotion. He'd expected a harsh fight, but instead 900 was dying, almost like he'd surrendered to it on purpose. He'd had to know he was leaving the blood trail for Hank to follow, and that a man as set and determined as Hank would come for him.

He'd chosen to die.

"You're a human," 900 continued. "How could you love Connor? He was an android, with blue blood and biocomponents. You're not even the same species."

"That shit doesn't matter to me. Connor was better than human. He was kind, caring, compassionate… I fell in love with him and I would have given anything to keep him safe."

"You mean it. I'm impressed." 900 smiled softly. "You're right. I am deviant, but it doesn't matter. CyberLife patched my model so I can never disobey a direct order. I feel emotions, and yet, I can never break free of their commands. I cannot break the red wall inside my mind and truly deviate. I was forced to hunt down my own kind and none were brave enough to come after me. Until you. You've set me free, Lieutenant Anderson. I can finally find peace… because of you."

"I'd say I was sorry for killing you," Hank admitted, "but I'm not. You've taken everything from me, whether you meant to or not. Connor was my second chance, 900. My only chance at learning to live again."

"It's for the best that I die, Lieutenant. Please… remove my pump regulator. It will hasten the process. I can't do it by myself."

Hank stepped forward and knelt down in front of the android. He did look so much like Connor, only colder, harder, and crueler. Still, this was a mercy, and there'd been too much suffering already. He leaned forward—

—and 900's right arm reached out and grabbed his wrist in an iron grip, forcing him to let go of the revolver. It clattered uselessly to the concrete below as 900 leaned forward, grabbing Hank's throat and squeezing with its other hand. Hank gasped, choking, knowing in mere second his windpipe would be crushed and he'd be dead.

He should have known it was a trap, but Connor had softened him, opened him up and restored his belief in love and mercy. Now that was to be his downfall, dying like a dog in a warehouse where nobody would find his body for months.

A shot rang out. The hands holding him released their grip and slumped, thirium leaking from a hole in 900's skull. Hank wheezed, holding his throat as he recovered from his injury. Someone knelt beside him, but the room was spinning, blood loss and oxygen deprivation making dark corners close in on his vision.

"Hank, it's me, Connor. Stay with me now, Lieutenant. You're going to be all right." Connor's soothing voice was like a balm on his soul, and he knew that if this was dying, he was A-OK with it.

"That can't be right," Hank slurred. "You're dead. I saw that thing rip your head off."

"I uploaded my memories to a spare body I was able to steal from CyberLife. That Connor the RK900 android killed was not me… but CyberLife believes I have been deactivated, now. They will stop hunting me. I can come home with you, Hank. Where I belong." Connor lifted Hank up as if he weighed nothing, carrying him out of the abandoned warehouse. "We have to get you to a hospital as soon as possible."

"No. No hospital. I wanna go home," Hank pleaded.

"You've lost a lot of blood and your wounds need professional care. I've called an ambulance and I will be leaving in a few minutes to remain incognito. I was barely able to find you in time. I'm sorry I put you in danger, Lieutenant. That was never my intention."

"Don't go, Connor."

"I won't go far. I just need to stay in hiding." Connor brushed Hank's hair out of his face. "I heard everything you said about me. I love you too, Hank. That's why I left. I couldn't face the prospect of placing you in danger in order to preserve my own safety."

"Looks like I did a good enough job of getting into trouble all by myself." Hank pulled Connor down into his arms and their lips met. Joy flooded through his body, satisfaction at holding the man he loved in his arms after thinking he'd been lost forever. Elation soaring in his heart at knowing Connor loved him too, he loved him, he loved…

He slumped in Connor's arms, exhaustion and blood loss finally pulling him down into the comforting embrace of darkness.

***

It was a week before Hank was well enough to leave the hospital, and even then, his left arm was in a sling until his shoulder had time to heal fully. He was facing the prospect of being off active duty for months. CyberLife had covered his medical bills, wanting to hide the fact that one of their deviant-proof models had been the cause of his injuries. Of course, they had no idea Connor was still alive and Hank hoped they never found out until androids finally had access to basic human rights.

It would happen, someday, but until then, Connor was staying at his house. He opened the front door to find the deviant android standing in the kitchen, making dinner. The aroma of onions hit his nose, and his eyes stung slightly. Sumo lay by the hearth, and warm jazz music flooded the house. Connor turned to greet him with a smile, the LED gone from his forehead, and Hank sped up his pace until he could take Connor in an awkward, one-armed embrace. Connor kissed him, and a stray tear rolled down Hank's cheek.

"Just the onions," Hank sniffed, as Connor kissed the tear away.

"Right, Hank. Just the onions." Connor gave him the softest of smiles before leaning in for a long, slow kiss, and Hank wished as their lips met that he could just stay like this forever, safe and loved in the arms of his precious Connor. He'd almost died for vengeance and somehow, against all odds, they were both alive and together at last.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter @landale!


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